Wallace Stevens: An American Modernist poet born in the year of 1879 and died in the year of 1955.
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was educated at Harvard as a non-degree special student in Reading, Pennsylvania. He then moved to New York and was a journalist for some time. Stevens then attended the New York Law School and graduated in 1903. He spent some of his lifetime being a lawyer for the Harvard insurance company in Connecticut. While returning to Pennsylvania he met a woman named Elsie Viola Kachel. A little while after, he married her even though his parents objected not to marry a woman from the lower-class. None of his family attended his wedding and Stevens did not visit or speak to his parents until after his father died. He had been making numerous visits to Key West, Florida for a business trip and he lodged in Casa Marina. Key West influenced his poetry greatly, for he described it as a Paradise. He has seen Robert Frost at least twice during his visits and they have argued both times. Stevens spent the last days of his life suffering from stomach cancer at the St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. He was released for a short time and then readmitted and died on August 2, 1955. He was buried in Hartford's Cedar Hill Cemetery at age 75.
Two Poems written by Wallace Stevens:
The Emperor of Ice-Cream Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Let the wenches dawdle in such dress As they are used to wear, and let the boys Bring flowers in last month's newspapers. Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal. Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet On which she embroidered fantails once And spread it so as to cover her face. If her horny feet protrude, they come To show how cold she is, and dumb. Let the lamp affix its beam. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. Wallace Stevens
The Snow Man One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was educated at Harvard as a non-degree special student in Reading, Pennsylvania. He then moved to New York and was a journalist for some time. Stevens then attended the New York Law School and graduated in 1903. He spent some of his lifetime being a lawyer for the Harvard insurance company in Connecticut.
While returning to Pennsylvania he met a woman named Elsie Viola Kachel. A little while after, he married her even though his parents objected not to marry a woman from the lower-class. None of his family attended his wedding and Stevens did not visit or speak to his parents until after his father died. He had been making numerous visits to Key West, Florida for a business trip and he lodged in Casa Marina. Key West influenced his poetry greatly, for he described it as a Paradise. He has seen Robert Frost at least twice during his visits and they have argued both times. Stevens spent the last days of his life suffering from stomach cancer at the St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. He was released for a short time and then readmitted and died on August 2, 1955. He was buried in Hartford's Cedar Hill Cemetery at age 75.
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal.
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Wallace Stevens
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Wallace Stevens
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